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A LECTURE, 



THE LATE HON. JAMES M'DOWELL, 

OF LEXINGTON, VA., 



AN ADDRESS, 



THE LATE REV. A. ALEXANDER, D.D. 



* PHILADELPHIA: 
FOR SALE BY JOSEPH M. WILSON, 

NO. 22S CHESTNUT STREET. 

1851. 






C. SHE B M AS, PRIME It. 



PREFACE. 



Philadelphia, November, 1851. 

We deem any extended preface to Gov. McDowell's Lecture un- 
necessary; but, as an appropriate introduction, the following beautiful 
and interesting letter is appended, by permission. 

G. Owen. 



Lexington, Virginia, 

September 30tb, 1S51. 

My dear Sir, 

The accompanying speech of my father I have copied for you, 
since his death, with the aid of his notes, from a much blurred and 
blotted manuscript found amongst his papers. 

It is, I believe, a complete speech, though probably not, in all its 
parts, the very one which you heard him deliver last spring in Phila- 
delphia; for he was accustomed, when warmed by his subject, to 
cast off the restraint of a written form, and give himself up to the 
inspiration of the moment, and at such times, from his aroused imagi- 
nation and enkindled enthusiasm, he would throw out, in illustration 
of his topic, many a glowing and striking picture, which he could 
never recover and reproduce afterwards, when, in the calmness and 
solitude of his own room, he was preparing that same address for 
publication. 



iv PREFACE. 

ae Buch omissions you will remark here. One especially I 
regret to los< — liis impassioned tribute to Kossuth — " that wonderful 
martyr to our principles, who, standing apart from all other men, 
and distinguished from the whole mass of his fellow-mortals, by the 
imposing and sublime isolation of his virtues and his fate, has been 
permitted, to the shame of Christendom, to depend upon a Mussul- 
man prinee for a refuge and a shelter." 

But these were embellishments of his topic, — not the topic itself, 
and though I am sorry to lose them, yet I am glad to find that 
nothing is lost that was necessary to the strength of the argument, 
and the main design of the speech. Therefore, I send it to you as it 
is, and hope that in this, his last effort for the good of his country, 
he may still, though his voice is now hushed for ever, be able to 
speak a word in support of that glorious Union, whose interests and 
whose welfare, shared with us, his children, the deepest anxieties and 
the warmest affections of his heart. 

I am, 

Very truly }'ours, 

SALfy C. P. M'Dowell. 

Rev. Griffith Owen, Philadelphia. 



LECTURE 

DELIVERED BY JAMES M'DOWELL, OF LEXINGTON, VA., IN PHILADELPHIA, ON 
BEHALF OF THE SOUTHWARK CHURCH IN THAT CITY, UNDER THE CHARGE OF 
THE REV. GRIFFITH OWEN. 

The high subject, fellow-citizens, upon which I have 
the privilege and the honour to address you to-night, 
is that of our political or federal Union. Not the 
whole subject, indeed; for that, as compounded of its 
past and its present — its seminal and its developed 
history, its colonial, revolutionary, and constitutional 
epochs, and its confederate relation to all that is most 
hopeful in the principles of human government, and 
the regulated progress of human liberty, is too immea- 
surable by far, for the elucidation or the reach of an 
hours discourse. 

In fact every part of this grand subject is a study ; 
every part of it is rich with spoils to the philosopher 
and the patriot : and no American, certainly no true- 
hearted and reflecting American, can ever examine it 
through, and ponder upon that multitude of scattered 
influences and events, each one of which was made, in 
its place, to contribute a special and almost mysterious 
share in the ultimate formation of the Union, without 
entertaining a loftier estimate of its value, and a de- 
vouter homage to that Providence, which casting his 
lot in it, made him thereby both a partaker aucl a dis- 
penser of its blessings. 



b LECTURE. 

If you would see this subject in some of its clearest 
and best lights, you must look to the sources from 
which our Union has proceeded. You must go back — 
far hack — of the written covenants in which its govern- 
ing authority is contained, and there, behind them, in 
the noble stocks from which our people have descended, 
and in the trying schools in which their national 
mind has been trained, } t ou will see the strong founda- 
tions upon which their principles and character have 
been laid, and trace the origin and the growth of that 
American spirit in which at last the living, thinking, 
active power of the Union consists. 

Without going, however, into these matters, because 
too extended for the purposes of this occasion, it is 
impossible to advert to our original family stock, and 
consider the first peopling of this Continent by the 
nations of Europe, without perceiving how wonderful 
was its connexion with some of the most thrilling eras 
of their history, and how beneficent and potential was 
its influence upon our own. 

There stands upon one side of the great deep these 
populous and powerful nations, just awaking from the 
sleep, and staggering under the wrongs of centuries: — 
and here, upon this side, stands our new and lovely- 
world, rejoicing in her liberty, smiling in abundance, 
and calling out from these v\u\^ of creation, upon all 
who had wants to supply, or wrongs to fear, or dangers 
to avoid, or energies to exert, to come and find here a 
habitation and a home beyond the reach of despotism 
and of harm, fir. far away under the setting sun. 
And they did come, — throng after throng of them, 
panting for this very deliverance, and pouring them- 
selves out for Ion-, long years, a living and swelling 
tide upon our shores. 



LECTURE. 



Under the stimulation of such a movement as this, 
it must needs happen that crowds of colonists would 
flock hither, who were, not only the most unlike, and, 
antecedently to their emigration, the most hostile to 
one another, hut that from all quarters the most 
vigorous, self-relying, and resolute of those who de- 
sired the change would be the first to make it. Hence 
the materials which first entered into the formation of 
our country were drawn from all parts of civilized 
Europe ; and those materials only were the most surely 
drawn which were the best fitted by nature, by suffer- 
ings, and by character, for the work of that unparal- 
leled empire to which it was their destiny to be de- 
voted. Hence, too, it came to pass that our people 
were not one people, built up as fragments that were 
cast forth from the surfeits and the plethora of another. 
Nor were they sent out by lot, or choice, or necessity, 
as the ancients sometimes sent out theirs to be formed 
into auxiliary or dependent communities, for the relief 
or aggrandizement of the parent State. But ours were 
a people gathered from all other people ; and " so 
gathered that the evils of each might be corrected by 
opposing good, and the good of all strengthened by the 
common will." They came from every land, and 
nation, and tongue, of the most enlightened part of the 
globe, bringing with them their tributary offering, and 
preparing themselves as a sort of community of na- 
tions under the severe ordeal of their new condition, 
for the new structure into which their united society 
was about to be cast. 

They brought with them also the sentiments and 
the purity, both political and religious, which drove 
them into our land from the controversies and troubles 



LECTURE. 

of their own. and yielding to the guidance and instruc- 
tion of these, they impressed upon the States which 
they founded here, in many vital things, the precisely 
opposite lineaments of those they had left. 

Prom the last quarter of the 16th to the middle of 
the 18th century, it may be affirmed, with almost 
literal exactness, that the controversies -and struggles 
of Europe were the copious and constant fountain of 
growth, and strength, and prosperity to us. During 
that one hundred and fifty years, what great events 
crowded upon one another throughout the States of 
that Continent ! What ceaseless and sanguinary wars! 
What rivalry and strife of mind ! What trying of all 
thing- by new and fiery processes, and yet, at the same 
time, what grand progression of the human race! 

Throughout the whole of this long period, and in the 
very midst of its most thrilling events, it was so 
ordered by Providence, that every land in Europe 
alike from its victories and its defeats, should send 
forth its colonists here. It mattered not, in their 
bloody conflicts with one another, whose the triumph 
or whose the fall, the gain was still to us. If the cruel 
and perfidious Stuarts ruled, Scotland and England 
and Ireland in turn gave us crowds of their best, who 
forsook everything at home for the sake of their reli- 
gion and their liberty here. And if the glorious Com- 
monwealth spread its banner over Britain, a misguided 
but heroic legality drove the defenders of the throne 
exile amongst our American forests. And here, 
upon these shores, the regicide who had taken the life 
of King Charles, and the Cavalier who had plotted 
thai of Cromwell, sat down side by side in the 
same boundless wilderness, and freely and ardently 



LECTURE. 9 

united their hands and their counsels in building up 
within it a common country for the protection of them- 
selves and their children. So, too, did a kindred peo- 
ple — kindred in the motives and feelings which con- 
trolled them, — come forth from Denmark, and Sweden, 
and Spain, and Italy, and the United Provinces. 
Even France, renowned, heroic, and beautiful France, 
gave to us and to mankind a handful of her wisest and 
her best, — a handful " of whom the world was not 
worthy;" who, without stain, without reproach, were 
crushed to the dust — were delivered up to the rack, 
the scourge, the dungeon, the stake, — as if accursed of 
Heaven, until, at last, a weeping and bleeding remnant 
of them found their way to our land, and poured into 
our veins the rich stream of Huguenot blood. 

Here, in these various colonists, we see the early 
instruments of that most happy of all systems of civil 
rule, which it is our blessing this day to enjoy. Such 
men, so situated as these, could not fail to be pro- 
foundly impressed with the grandeur of their new 
position. To them — "old things had passed away" — 
the ancient world was dead, and they were launched 
into a new existence, where their own destiny and 
that of indefinite ages, waited to be fashioned by their 
hands. Thoroughly alive to all the great questions 
which had convulsed the world, actors themselves in 
the vast movements under which States had been 
rent, victims of every form of ancient and inherited 
evil, or victors in every strife which the young rege- 
nerate waged against the dying Europe, they stood, 
after their arrival here, in solitary but sublime and 
inspiring isolation upon the margin of a second world 
and a new futurity. Hence it was, no doubt, that the 



1 1 1 LECTURE. 

greal master principles of the new order of things, 
wbicb they established for their new situation, were 

Laid simply, deeply, broadly, with the least possible 
commixture of ancient error, and the largest possible 
one of reason, justice, equality, and common sense. 
As the necessary consequence of this, behold in every 
community amongst us, no matter what the nation or 
people it principally sprang from, and no matter in 
what clime of our broad empire it lies — behold in 
them all but one model, — but one spirit, — but one 
fabric. — one precious, majestic fabric of man for man. 

Whilst, however, the training of our colonial fore- 
fathers led inevitably to that new order of govern- 
ment which they established ; so too did the boundless 
expansion of the field to which they had come, lead 
just as ineyitably to the distinct and separate commu- 
nities into which they were formed from the first. 
And here, in these two things — first, in the simple 
nature and clear equity of our foundation principles; 
and. secondly, in the creation of many separate States 
upon a common basis — we have briefly comprehended 
the primary and powerful elements of whatever is 
most peculiar, secure, energetic, expansive, and valu- 
able in our s3'stem. 

On the one hand, we find that this internal struc- 
ture, resting upon a basis of perfect equity, has called 
for devotion to principle, and has been enabled to 
maintain, from the beginning, one unwavering and 
fixed constancy to the great ideas upon which the 
whole system reposes, that you will look in vain for 
tin' unworthy compromise, or the wilful violation, or 
tin' purposed abandonment, of any of the essential 
principles for whieb our forefathers emigrated here, or 



LECTURE. 11 

upon which any State has been formed, or which has 
guided from the first the faith and spirit of our 
people. 

On the other hand, every outward circumstance 
in the state of the country, and that of the emigrants 
to it, having demanded at the outset, as indispensable, 
the formation of separate and distinct communities, — 
the construction here of one undivided, supreme, and 
central power, embodying the whole, or controlling 
the whole, was the very opposite of all the possibili- 
ties of our case ; nor was the construction of even 
a national one possible either, except to a very limited 
extent, and upon fixed points. How that national 
one came eventually to be formed, — how the numer- 
ous States that sprung up into separate existence, 
under the necessities of their colonial settlement, were 
drawn at last into one sovereign confederacy with each 
other, is an inquiry altogether important to the sub- 
ject before us, but too recently and too elaborately 
reviewed upon this spot to be investigated now. 

There are three periods of our history within which 
the great features of our political system have been 
the most distinctly and permanently marked. 

The first, beginning with the discovery and the 
settlement of the country, and extending on to 1733, 
when Georgia, the last of the colonies, was planted. 

The second, including the colonial and revolutionary 
history, and ending with the old confederation, in 
1789. 

The third, beginning at that time and embracing 
our constitutional history, together with the events of 
this, our own day. 

Passing by the first two periods which have been 



12 LECTURE. 

mentioned, without further remark, let us consider for 
awhile our constitutional Union as we have it; its 
general structure; its excellence; its perfect adapted- 
ness to every variety of State law, and State institu- 
tion; its tried adequacy for the highest ends of good 
government, and thence, by legitimate deduction, let 
us infer the measure and the sacreclness of that re- 
sulting duty, which rests upon every American citizen 
to cherish, to vindicate, and uphold it. 

There is no remark upon the Union more obvious, 
or more meet to be remembered, in its administration, 
than this : that whilst, upon the one hand, it is not a 
mere confederacy or association upon agreed terms, of 
an indefinite number of political communities ; so, 
upon the other, it is not a simple body or nation, 
whose supreme and governing power is exercised by a 
mere majority of its actual numbers. It is something 
between these states or conditions of political being, 
and' is wisely compounded of them both ; it is an 
negation, for certain great purposes of government, 
of all the people and all the States into one; and, for 
other great purposes, again, a severance of them all 
into separate and self-governed, but united parts. 
Eence the definition that was given of it by Mr. 
Madison, in one of the numbers of the Federalist, that 
it was partly national and partly federal, in its con- 
struction and its powers. 

Exclusively federal during the Revolutionary war, 
it was then proven, that, however well such a form of 
government mighl answer for the country under the 
pressure of danger, and during the patriotic fervor 
which that danger would call into life, yet, that it 
itterly inadequate to the requirements and the 



LECTURE. 13 

wants of our e very-day and permanent system. Thus 
warned and certified of its defects, our provident fore- 
fathers of that day, both statesmen and people, deter- 
mined to change it, and to provide another of a kin- 
dred kind, from which, at least, all the known defects 
of the first should be carefully pruned away. Our pre- 
sent constitution is that other, — a constitution in which 
the basis of the old one is retained, but retained with 
an adjustment and distribution of powers, between 
the General and State governments, so changed as to 
form a system, in many vital respects, entirely new — 
one which has no precedent in political example, and 
which, judged of by its fruits, has no parallel in 
political value. As the retention of distinct and sepa- 
rate communities has been formed an absolute and 
indispensable preliminary in all hypotheses and 
schemes of government, with us, the great problem 
was, how to preserve that preliminary, and, at the 
same time, provide a government which should be 
perfectly capable, when need be, of exerting, without 
hindrance, delay, or confusion of any kind, the power 
of all for the purposes of all. This was the great 
problem in the case ; and contradictory and paradoxi- 
cal even as it seemed to be, it was fully and wisely 
accomplished, the whole parts of the government 
scheme being so arranged as to place all local in- 
terests under the management of the local govern- 
ments, and all the general ones — all that enters into 
the common tranquillity, and the common defence, — 
under the administration of the federal head. Each 
particular State was allowed to retain, with specified 
and limited exceptions, the complete right of a sepa- 
rate and sovereign republic, to govern everything 



14 LECTURE. 

within its own territory, according to the judgment 
and will of its own people. But, at the same time, 
each Slate was put into union with all the rest, as 
mutual and equal parties to one grand compact, and 
made to co-operate, within fixed and definite limits, in 
such matters of mutual and general concernment as 
the common head should adjudge to be necessary and 
proper. 

In other words, our States are associated with one 
another in a government by which each is left to take 
care of its own homestead, and all are consolidated 
under one will, and into one vast aggregate of effi- 
ciency and power, for the joint purposes of peace, 
prosperity, and defence. Several, separate, and self- 
directed, upon matters of special interest, they have 
yet the front, the force, the revenues, the numbers, 
the majestic might of embodied nations, when acting 
lor a common end. As individuals when entering 
into society divest themselves of a portion of their 
natural liberty, with a view to the better use and 
protection of the whole of it, so the States, when en- 
tering into the Union, gave up a portion of their State 
supremacy, or political liberty, upon the very same 
principle, and for the very same purpose. 

Rhode Island and Delaware, when they became 
members of the Union, conceded to it a part of their 
sovereignty. Not only is the conceded part employed, 
with the aid of their own counsel, for their own good; 
but the concession .-jives, in effect, their petty area an 

empire's bounds, and puts their petty power under the 
st inn- wing of many millions. Their drop of contri- 
bution is returned to them in an ocean of pay. 
One of the first and happiest effects of this govern- 



LECTURE. 15 

mental union of contiguous States, was the extinguish- 
ing, at the outset, all the temptations and all the 
possibilities even of conflict and of war with one 
another (temptations and possibilities especially inci- 
dent to their neighbouring situation); it established 
over them, instead, a law of mutual kindness and 
interest, and made the faculties and advantages of 
each the faculties and advantages of all. 

But this idea has been so happily and forcibly set 
forth in a speech which was made by Mr. James Wil- 
son, a wise and eminent statesman of your own, in the 
Pennsylvania Convention which assembled in 1787, to 
deliberate and decide upon the ratification or rejection 
of the federal constitution, which was then just formed. 
Mr. Wilson advocated the ratification with great zeal; 
and, in an argument in the speech referred to, upon 
facts and upon general principles of government, so 
strong, so satisfactory, so comprehensive of all the 
points of the case, that it is not only a rich deposi- 
tory for the constitutional student, but a sound, judi- 
cious, and admirable tract for our own times. Advert- 
ing to the circumstances in the situation of this 
country which rendered a federal government, in his 
opinion, the only suitable one for it, he says : " The 
United States may adopt any one of four different 
systems. They may become consolidated into one 
government, in which the separate existence of the 
States shall be entirely absorbed. They may reject 
any plan of union or association, and act as separate 
and unconnected States. They may form two or 
more confederacies. They may unite in one federal 
republic. Which of these systems ought to have been 
proposed by the Convention ? To support with vigour 



1G LECTURE. 

a single government over the whole extent of the 
United States, would demand a system of the most 
unqualified and unremitted despotism. Such a num- 
ber of Beparate States, unconnected and disunited in 
government, would be at one time the prey of foreign 
force, foreign influence, and foreign intrigue ; at an- 
other, the victim of mutual rage, rancour, and revenge. 
Neither of these systems found advocates in the late 
Convention. I presume they will not find advocates 
in this. Would it be proper to divide the United 
States into two or more confederacies ? It will not be 
unadvisable to take a more minute survey of this 
subject. Some aspects under which it may be viewed, 
are far from being, at first sight, uninviting. Two or 
more confederacies would be each more manageable 
and more compact, than a single one extending over 
the same territory. By dividing the United States into 
two or more confederacies, the great collision of inte- 
rests, apparently or really different and contrary, 
would be broken, and in great measure disappear in the 
several parts. But these advantages, which are dis- 
covered from certain points of view, are greatly over- 
balanced by inconveniences that will appear on a more 
accurate examination. Animosities and perhaps wars 
would arise upon assigning the extent, the limits, and 
the rights of the different confederacies. The expenses 
of governing would be multiplied by the number of 
federal governments. The danger resulting from 
foreign influence and mutual dissension would not, 
perhaps, !>•' less great and alarming, in the instance of 
differenl confederacies, than in that of different though 

"e numerous unassociated States. 

•• These observations, and more that might be made, 



LECTURE. 17 

will be sufficient to evince that a division of the United 
States into a number of separate confederacies, would 
probably be an unsatisfactory and unsuccessful experi- 
ment. The remaining system which the American 
States may adopt, is a union of them under one con- 
federate republic. It will not require much time or 
argument to show that this is the most eligible that 
can be proposed," &c. 

Apart from the advantages of preserving the peace 
and preventing the differences that would result from 
using all their faculties to build up and to strengthen, 
or to pull down and destroy one another ; — apart from 
this, so comprehensive often of the whole story even 
of national existence, there are others only less 
obvious and less potential than it is. And amongst 
these the most striking, perhaps, is the expansibility of 
the system in its inherent power of easy and indefinite 
enlargement. 

With our home interests under the control of our 
home government, and our foreign and internal tran- 
quillity under that of the federal head, happily for 
us — happily for mankind, all areas suit it alike. It is 
equally fit for the Cantons of Switzerland and the 
Continent of America. 

It matters nothing as to the States it unites, how 
they may differ or how agree, in geographical and in 
moral qualities ; in their physical products, or in the 
pursuits, habits, tastes, sympathies, and social struc- 
ture of their population. They may differ in all 
things, they may agree in all things, — it is just the 
same as respects the value and the fitness of the sys- 
tem for their use. The reason of this is obvious and 
easily understood. It is, that all the identities of 



IS LECTURE. 

feeling and interest, all the homogeneousness which 
the safe administration of a popular government un- 
doubtedly requires, are provided for — abundantly pro- 
vided for and secured in the different States, whose 
special province it is to act upon the thousand-fold 
relations and rights of individual man, and need not, 
therefore, be required of the States politically as 
necessary conditions of their union with one another. 

Indeed, contrarieties of condition amongst the States, 
so far from being evils to deprecate, are sometimes 
advantages to seek for. 

" I know," says Mr. Jefferson, in his presidential 
Inaugural of 180-5, " that the acquisition of Louisiana 
has been disapproved by some from a candid appre- 
hension that the enlargement of our territory would 
endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to 
which the federative principle may operate effectively? 
The larger our association the less will it be shaken by 
local passions." This is philosophically and practically 
true. Hence, under the beneficence of our system, 
the extension which would overwhelm despotisms and 
simple republics alike, is only an added element of 
safety and of strength to us. 

Take it in its whole circle of capability and of 
action, and it is demonstrable that of all forms of 
government it is the most difficult to be abused to ends 
of violence, and the most easily to be restored to \\< 
per course. It is demonstrable, too, that no other 
form can do as much for civilization and knowledge, 
I'.]- no other one possesses sue!) a multitude of Separate 
centres, each one of which gives increased activity to 
everything within itself, hereby adding to the sum of 
all human movements, and each one affording in times 



LECTURE. 19 

of trial and of darkness a refuge and a home against 
the crimes, the follies, or the disasters of all the rest. 
Such a system, from its whole nature and composition, 
possesses the utmost possible means of resisting evil 
influences from within, both because it is most depen- 
dent on the general will, and therefore most dear to 
the common heart; and because its capacity for self- 
adjustment is most perfect, and its centres of influence 
and security most multiplied, — insomuch, indeed, as 
to require that a positive majority of the whole, and a 
concurrent one of every part, should be utterly cor- 
rupted and lost to the vital principles of the system, be- 
fore it could be destroyed in all of its strongholds, — 
and as long as a solitary one of them remained, that 
one might redeem all the rest. Still, like all human 
good, this system is not entirely free from incidental 
defeat. Invaluable and unequalled as described in 
the great and vital qualities of a just and safe and 
powerful government, it is yet not to be denied that 
the very structure which secures these results, itself, 
does something to impair the popular cordialities of 
popular intercourse; to put the States upon a footing 
of separation and severalty in their social as in their 
political connexions ; and, by making each one of them 
the centre to itself of all the stronger and more exclu- 
sive interests and affections, to promote the growth of 
a divided fellowship, to weaken the sense of a com- 
mon unity, and thereby to foster if not to fix amongst 
the people of the States whose laws and institutions 
materially differ, a spirit of mutual prejudice and ex- 
ception. 

No observer of our social affinities can fail to have 
perceived how frequent and marked, in private life. 



20 LECTURE. 

are the traces of this spirit; nor are we without occa- 
sional and exciting exhibitions of it, also, in public 
a Hairs. That the great sectional controversy of the 
lasl fcwo or three years, which has lain, until recently, 
like an incubus, upon Congress and the country, has 
owed both its bitterness and its duration, in some 
degree, at least, to this very spirit, cannot, I think, be 
reasonably questioned. How else could we find all 
the slaveholding communities blended together upon 
one side, upon the moral as well as the political aspects 
of that controversy, and all the non-slaveholding 
communities, just as thoroughly united, and just to 
the same extent, on the other ? How could this be, 
but that each of these parties had been trained and 
educated to a sentiment upon the case between them, 
which was suited to its own separate and particular, 
but opposite, condition of society and of life ? 

Still, however, there is nothing necessarily evil in 
this territorial or State spirit, easily as it may be 
aroused, and ruinous of the public peace as it may be 
made to be. It is the fountain of State loyalty, and 
State amelioration. It is, in that, by necessary conse- 
quence, the fountain also of national good. It is. yet 
further, the source of good, when it operates to incul- 
cate and to maintain among the States an intercourse 
and sentiment of mutual toleration and respect. 

As the recent exhibition of this spirit, in the 
contest referred to, was by far the fiercest and most 
alarming to the continued repose and security of the 
Republic which we have ever had, let us devote a 
passing inquiry into that famous Institutionj about 
which that contest was enkindled, and see. if we can. 
whether there 18 anything in it. or in the laws that 



LECTURE. 21 

govern it, that should aggrieve communities which, 
like yours, have disowned and renounced it, or which 
should diminish, in any sort, the fervour of their 
attachment to that Union within whose bosom and 
under whose constitutional wing it is sheltered. 

And first and mainly as to your responsibility — 
what is it ? 

Upon this point, it is, perhaps, quite enough to say, 
that as every State, under our system of government, 
is the exclusive and sovereign disposer within its own 
limits, of all the local rights and establishments of its 
people, those of them only which sanction the institu- 
tion of slavery are responsible for it ; whilst the rest, 
that have not sanctioned it, are no more responsible 
for it, amongst those who have, than they are for the 
regulation of the poor-rates or of the Church property 
in the Kingdom of Great Britain. 

Different nations are not a particle more indepen- 
dent of one another, in the control of matters within 
their own proper limits, than are the different States 
of this Union, in the control of theirs. This is a 
great first principle in our government, to which all 
else is made to conform. As you are wholly irrespon- 
sible, then, under your fundamental law, for this insti- 
tution in the States Avhere it exists, your only respon- 
sibility for it lies outside of the States, and consists, 
exclusively, in your connexion with a government 
which allows it in any of its parts. The whole head 
and front of your offending, upon this subject, " hath 
just this extent and no more :" that you are co-par- 
ties in a system of government with others who 
possess, and who, in some cases, exercise under that 
system the right to establish that institution within 



22 LECTURE. 

their own domain. Yon discard and reject it for your- 
selveBj but yon have a co-membership in a government 
which intermediately maintains it, and therefore, as it 
is argued, you sanction what it sanctions. In other 
words, your co-membership in the same constitution 
with slaveholding States, is the sum total of your cul- 
pability in this matter. But to make this a real 
offence, and not an ideal one, it must be shown that 
this co-membership is a part of the means b\- which 
the slavery of the slaveholding States was established 
and is kept up. If this cannot be shown, then it 
cannot be proven that you have contributed anything 
to slavery; and if nothing, you have of course nothing 
to answer for. That slavery would have existed in 
the Southern States, whether you had been connected 
with them or not, no one can question. Your associa- 
tion with those States in the federal government has, 
doubtless, added to their stability and strength, and in 
that way you have added something to the strength of 
tliis institution. Admit it, — admit it to the utmost, — 
what then ? Looking at the matter thus, it is a mat- 
ter of mere conjecture, whether your constitutional 
co-partnership with us has over had any actual effect 
upon tliis institution. Assume it, however, to have 
had — assume it to have been one of the positive 
means of its continuance and its spread — what is your 
culpability then? what the moral measure of your 
offence? Did no consideration of national safety. — 
did no consideration of national self-preservation enter 
into your \io\v and control you in the formation of 
your constitutional compacl with the South? Had 
vim no well-grounded apprehensions of extinction by 
a foreign power, or by local conflicts at home, unless 



LECTURE. 23 

secured and protected against it by this compact ? If 
you had, then it was your duty to enter it. But go a 
step further, — go to the last proposition in the case. 
Admit that there was no such duty, — no such justifi- 
cation as that assumed ; there is, at least, and at last, 
a principle of consideration for ecmivalents, upon which 
to estimate and try it. Take your guilt for all the 
slavery which the Constitution, of which you are a co- 
member, has authorized outside of the States, and in- 
side of them, and weigh it against the civil, religious, 
and personal liberty which it has also authorized out- 
side and in, — against the good, in a thousand shapes, 
which the same Constitution is doing, and will con- 
tinue to do, for universal man ; take these things and 
weigh them against one another, and then say, as 
rational persons, whether there is any guilt in this 
partnership that you regret, — whether you repent 
yourselves for your share in the great charter which 
is impelling free thought and free action amongst all 
people, giving a new soul to the world that we live in. 

There is a fanaticism which would hold these weights 
to be equal ; or rather, which would hold the guilt to 
exceed the grace and grandeur of the recompense ; but 
it is kindred with the madness which would complain 
of the polar star, because of the trifling oscillations on 
his centre, or would tear the sun himself from the 
sky, because of the spots upon his disk. 

But beyond this covenant connexion with slavehold- 
ing States, you have an historical relation with this 
subject of slavery, which, if it goes no farther, goes 
far enough, at least, to bespeak the exercise of your 
patience and your charity towards us. You, too, of 
Pennsylvania, have been slaveholders in your day, as 



24 LECTURE. 

well as we of Virginia and the South. Every one of 
the original thirteen States, indeed, at some stage of 
their career, have given the sanction of law to the 
very same slavery which now exists at the South; 
ami those of them who have taken that sanction 
away, and expunged the system from their midst. 
have done so through the influence of that enlight- 
ene 1 interest, to whose quick and effective law it is 
safest and wisest to commit it everywhere else. And 
why not V What good reason is there, founded upon 
considerations of humanity, in the abstract or the con- 
crete, why this system of slavery, regarded as of civil 
rights, should not. like every other one pertaining to 
property, lie subjected to the control of private in- 
terest '.' Under this great first law of property regula- 
tion, itself underlying and supporting the vast trans- 
actions of the civilized world, this institution has 
disappeared from amongst you, and may, in due sea- 
son, especially when coupled with other reasons, 
disappear from large portions of the South also. Not- 
withstanding the bounties, both of land and money, 
with which it was the policy of some of your North- 
ern legislatures, at an early day, to encourage the 
direct importation of the slave from Africa, and not- 
withstanding the mercantile activity, and the high 
profits upon a large scale, which this importation is 
believed to have excited and rewarded, still the physi- 
cal nature of the slave was such that he withered 
away under the rigors of your Northern climate, and 
soon dropped from your hands, a profitless and trou- 
blesome posses-ion. Had all the facts in this case 
been reversed, — had the -oil been propitious to his 
Labours, the climate to his health, — had the sun and 



LECTURE. 25 

the air been such as to crush the spirit and the ener- 
gies of his master for outdoor employment, but to 
buoy up and invigorate his, — had he, of all men in the 
world, been the identical one who was the best fitted 
by his constitution and colour, to reap from your field 
of toil the largest possible profits of human labour, 
at the least possible expense of human happiness or 
life, — and had he, as a consequence of this double 
advantage, been able to pour yearly and increasing 
millions into the hands of communities that enslaved 
him ; and, besides all this, had he become so perfectly 
wrought up into the texture and framework of society 
about him, its habits, sentiments, dependencies, and 
affections, that it was impossible to sever him from it 
without a shock, — had all this, instead of the con- 
trary, been his situation, it is not to be doubted that 
the process of his emancipation would have been 
slower, and the spurning of the whole system from 
human s} r mpathy and endurance would have been 
less clamorous, and impassioned, and indignant, than 
it has been, and is. 

Under a change of circumstances, indeed, in this 
matter so total, it is not altogether presumptuous or 
irreverent to imagine that you, even you, who are 
warmed with the blood of the William Penns, and Eoger 
Williams and Cotton Mathers, would, at this very 
day, be standing in the footsteps of the South, think- 
ing her thoughts, and feeling her feelings, and vindi- 
cating her equities, in the national strifes which this 
subject has provoked. 

Whatever the motives which prevailed in Northern 
emancipation, it is not to be forgotten that the South 
was a powerful auxiliary in having it accomplished. 



26 LECTURE. 

She was always ready to receive the slaves which their 
Northern owners found it profitable or convenient to 
dispose of; thus affording, at that day, through her 
territories, the relief, in this respect, which at this day 
has been denied so strenuously to herself, and thus 
stimulating emancipation in the North by making it 
a source of trade and direct pecuniary gain. 

Your incumbering and your profitless thousands of 
slaves were thrown off upon her, and the vast sums of 
money which were given in exchange, taken back to 
your own homesteads, have long since been incorpo- 
rated with that capital whose wonder-working progress 
and achievements have attracted to your enterprise 
the homage of universal admiration, and filled your 
whole land with monuments of science and art, and 
philanthropy and religion. 

Were it possible to follow the fortunes of a dollar 
upon its adventurous pathway through the world, it 
is not to be doubted that thousands of those into which 
these slaves were exchanged, and which are now mul- 
tiplied into thousands more, are "going ahead" at this 
hour, furnishing forth food and raiment and personal 
consequence to many a citizen, who, as he communes 
with himself in the solitude of his own chamber, or in 
the busy thoroughfares of men, thanks Heaven that he 
has nothing to do with the guilt of human bondage, 
and that his whole nature revolts at any kindred rela- 
tionship with the robber-man, who can smooth his 
pillow, or satisfy his wants, or enjoy his life, upon the 
soiled and sorrowing proceeds of so hateful a system. 

Be it as it may, a portion of its original materials came 
from yourselves ; and however remote, and however 
slight, comparatively, your ancestral association with 



LECTURE. 27 

it, it was yet enough in its inceptive state, then and 
now, to shut the mouth of imperial rebuke, and draw 
forth, what is so much wiser, gentler, and better, in 
its stead, the words and the acts of moderation, kind- 
ness, and forbearance. 

Recurring to the humanity which is involved in this 
subject, it is pertinent to say, that since the introduc- 
tion of the slave into the South, taking his whole case 
into view, humanity has been immensely the gainer. 
When we received him there, he was a perfect bar- 
barian, with only rationality enough to be employed in 
the very simplest and lowest of human labours. We 
now present him back to the world with his barbarism 
all extinguished and gone, himself highly enlightened, 
in thousands of individual cases, and thoroughly im- 
bued, as a race, with the tastes, the habits, the wants, 
the improvabilities of civilized man. Meanwhile, he 
has been kept in a degree of physical comfort, exceed- 
ing that of any peasant labourer, whose condition we 
know anything about, in the whole world. There is 
no such thing as a pauper slave, and never can be. 
Whoever else may writhe and groan under want or 
debt, the slave feels neither, and fears neither: he 
works on, sleeps on, whistles on (for he is the merriest 
of all mortals), just as if such things had no existence 
amongst the troubles of life. 

Not only, however, is he among the most comfort- 
able of the labourers of mankind, if not, pre-eminent- 
ly the most so, in this external and physical condition, 
he is still more — he is in the midst of that condition 
the producer of more that supplies the wants, and 
nourishes the industry, and adds to the resources, and 



28 LECTURE. 

energies, and enjoyments of the whole world, than any 
oilier producing class of equal numbers that is in it. 

Take the Bingle article of cotton, which is raised 
by hi in. and oftentimes under circumstances making 
the production impossible to any one of a different 
colour. — take the sixty-five or seventy millions of 
dollars worth of this article, coming from his hands, 
and follow it up through all its changes of form and 
place, from its first gathering in the field, to the spot 
of its final consumption; look at the whole s}-stem of 
manufacturing, commercial, and mechanical pursuits 
which it puts into motion at every step of its progress, 
— look at these again, as divided, diversified, and pros- 
pered, — see the multitudes, of all sorts, that they 
absorb in their operations, and to whom they extend 
occupation and suhsistence ; — see all this, and, if it he 
possihle for arithmetic to sum up and to express in 
figures the amount which is thus added to the wealth 
of the world, yet it is impossible to go to the hearth 
and trace out the mental and moral effects of these 
multiplied, and replenished, and prospered pursuits 
upon the heart and life of the whole masses they em- 
ploy; so it is impossible, in these hest results, for any 
figures ever to show how immeasurably the slave has 
added by this one product of his labour to the great 
aggregate of civilization and of human happiness. 

Tims have we changed the barbarian whom we got, 
into civilized, oftentimes into Christianized man; 
and. besides that, we have made him an instrument of 
peculiar and prominent value in upholding and ex- 
tending the civilization and the progress of others. 

Bui there is another phase of still livelier interest 
in which he stands out to the eye of the world : — it LS 



LECTURE. 29 

that in which he appears, not as the passive creature, 
submitting himself and his destiny, unthinkingly and 
unquestioningly, to the absolute will of another, but 
that, in which he becomes the intelligent and indepen- 
dent actor for himself. 

Some thirty years ago, a handful of liberated slaves 
were formed into a colony on the shores of Western 
Africa, where, self-directed and self-sustained almost 
entirely, they have risen up into a strong and inde- 
pendent community, having established, by their own 
act, a system of government and of civil rights upon 
the general model of our own, and thus prepared them- 
selves, at the start, for the enjoyment and the spread 
of the largest liberty, personal, spiritual, and civil, in 
the dark and native land of the cannibal and the out- 
cast. 

But yesterday, they, or their immediate progenitors, 
were a submissive group of Southern slaves — now, the 
head of a republic, more happy, more prosperous in its 
whole career, more stable in its structure, more auspi- 
cious of extended good, than any which enlightened 
and venerable Europe has yet been able to evoke from 
her learning and her conflicts. 

Here, upon one side is Liberia, made up of American 
slaves, all but indiscriminately- gotten together, sitting 
peacefully and serenely in the enjoyment of their 
regulated liberty, with their congresses, and churches, 
and school-houses, and independent press ; — with all 
the awakening, energizing, and conservative means by 
which a free people, and a just and rational government, 
reciprocally cherish and support one another. 

There, on the other side, is France, heroic France, 
pursuing for generations the idea of free and popular 



30 LECTURE. 

government, with all the eagerness and intensity of 
madness itself — and pursuing it through scenes of 
convulsion and massacre, yet, ever crossed, cheated, 
despoiled pf her aims, she has accomplished, as yet, 
nothing half so valuable. And there, too, is Rome, 
the mother of civilization, trembling under the liberty- 
impulse of the age, and the high inspiration of her 
immortal renown; yet, as in France, she too, with all 
her spirit, and blood, and battles, has accomplished 
nothing so good. With her Vatican of four hundred 
thousand volumes, and her seventy thousand marble 
statues, the disinterred remains of her illustrious age, 
she yet wants the bold and free press to give vitality 
and effect to the liberty-sentiment of her people, and 
to drive forward her struggles with the entire power 
of the popular heart. And, herein, this hierarchate 
of a thousand years — this eternal city of the Pontiffs 
and the Caesars, is incomparably below the slave-born, 
the slave-bred, negro-conducted commonwealth of 
Liberia ! 

In all these developments of the progress of slavery, 
we are furnished with results highly favourable, even 
upon a large scale, to personal and general humanity; 
results, too. which have arisen out of the natural and 
regular working of the system, and which have not 
been produced by any artificial means adroitly inter- 
<1 io create them. They have, in fact, fallen out 
by the wayside, as so many unanticipated consequences 
of a system which was established entirely as one of 
labour, and which has, regularly and rigidly, been kept 
up lbr teat purpose, and for no other whatsoever. 

Con idering this institution of slavery in the light 
i r these various developments, it is easj to see that it 



LECTURE. 31 

not only carries along with it the mere tendencies or 
aptitudes for incidental alleviation, but strong and per- 
suasive elements, which are quietly, certainly, mys- 
teriously working on to some final issue, which it is 
not for man with rash and pragmatical hand to preci- 
pitate, but to wait for, — and to wait with reverence and 
submission. And amongst the elements so pointing to 
this final issue, is the very one, in my judgment, which 
is the most habitually dwelt upon and deprecated as 
filling up the whole system with its difficulties and its 
clangers — namely, the colour of its subjects. Had it 
not been for this unhappy colour, it has been said a 
million of times, there would either never have been 
such a thing as American slavery, or, if there had, it 
would have been blotted out long ago. But for this 
natural and irremovable impediment, the master and 
the vassal race would have mingled with each other as 
they have done in all other nations where the same 
relation existed, and slavery here, as there, would 
have been sunk and lost without shock, disquiet, or 
embarrassment of any kind, but gently, quietly, accep- 
tably, happily, by the voluntary union of the parties 
with one another. This is true — undoubtedly true. 
But this truth, thought out to its proper results, not 
only furnishes nothing to lament in the colour of the 
slave, but much to admire ; and goes to impress the 
whole system, through that very circumstance, with 
an extraordinary character of hopefulness and in- 
terest. 

The colour so objected to, has always operated as a 
sort of prohibitory law to prevent the amalgamation of 
the races, and thereby to preserve to the African 
amongst us, the same physical characteristics which 



32 LECTURE. 

were given to him at the home and in the land of his 
birth. The universality and long continuance of this 
effect, is itself pretty strong presumptive proof that 
the separation of the races was a thing designed by the 
colour, and so designed for the ulterior purpose, as we 
may suppose, of preserving for some other end the 
physical peculiarities of the African upon this conti- 
nent precisely as they belonged to him upon his own. 
But if the absolute separation of the races was a real 
design in this case, how imperfectly and feebly pro- 
tected would it seem to be under the mere caprices and 
instincts of taste which attach to diversities of colour. 
Accordingly, we find that it is, in fact, committed to 
no such slight and conquerable guardianship as this; 
but that it is put under the iron hand of a physical 
law. 

The offspring of the two races is a hybrid — a mon- 
ster in animal economy, — and though its progression 
is not restricted, like that of some of the inferior ani- 
mals, to the first generation, it is, nevertheless, so 
arrested by the most crushing calamities that flesh is 
heir to. — by lunacy, idiocy, blindness, deafness, and 
dumbness, that, unremoved, it dies out in five or six 
generations, and can never become the sound, parental 
stock nl' a selfoontmuing population. 

Here, then, we have always before us the extraor- 
dinary spectacle of one race of mankind living in the 
midst of another, and so living for now more than two 
hundred years, and yet, prevented by the force of 
natural laws from incorporating with it, and thereby 
prevented, also, from disappearing and from impairing 
or Losing any one <>\' iis native and original characte- 
ristics. The final cause of this — the reason why it is 



LECTURE. 33 

so, we must look for in that primitive curse, by which 
Canaan was doomed to be " a servant of servants unto 
his brethren ;" or we must find it, where it most likely 
exists, in some high and renovating function which the 
American slave is destined to fulfil in the redemption 
of the continent and people from which he originally 
came. 

Along with this physical immutability as a race 
amongst us, the slave associates another peculiarity 
hardly less significant, or less declaratory of the pur- 
pose of his presence here, — and that is, his almost in- 
credible aptitude for acquiring, as if by intuition, the 
tastes, the social habits, the mechanical arts, and the 
household intelligence of his master. Go to Dahomy, 
catch up one of its wild children, bring him here with 
all his barbarism and his hated notions sticking to 
him ; harness him up to your labours ; shut him out 
from every item of knowledge but what he can pick 
up from his yoke-fellows in the toil of the field ; — do 
this, and yet, in a few years, his whole savagism will 
drop away from him clean and smooth, as if by magic, 
and he will stand forth a civilized man. But if this 
is not universally true of the imported native African 
himself, it is absolutely and universally so of his 
American child of the first generation. How vast the 
difference, in this respect, between him and our own 
red men, who, at this day, are almost as wild as if 
ages of national and missionary effort had not been 
made to improve him. How vast the difference, too, 
between what he is here and in his own country: 
there, amongst the most incapable of all savages for 
self-elevation ; but here, wonderfully capable of lifting 
himself up by the help and the hands of others. 



',! LECTURE. 

Take along with all these peculiarities, and as one 
of the concurrent parts of the general illustration they 
afford, the historical fact, now fully established and 
admitted, that the climate of Africa is so fatal to the 
white man, with scarcely the exception of any locality, 
that he can never make that continent the permanent 
place of his residence, or his labours. Whatever, 
therefore, is done for the moral improvement of it and 
of its one hundred and sixty millions of heathen, must 
be done by the black man himself. It results that 
this whole continent, with her teeming savage off- 
spring, is shut up, inexorably shut up, to the dread 
alternative of receiving her help from sons of her 
own, or of remaining without it for ever. And here, 
in this alternative, — in this last necessity of leaving 
Africa to her deep and solitary woe, or of confiding 
the high mission of her deliverance to such of her own 
children as must elsewhere be fitted and prepared to 
undertake it, we may discover a not improbable solu- 
tion of the whole problem of negro slavery with us. 
In this necessity, we see, most probably, why it is that 
the identity of his race has been so wonderfully pro- 
tected — protected under natural laws, which rendered 
it impossible for him to incorporate with us, and im- 
possible for him, therefore, to disappear from amongst 
us as a caste. Here, too, we have the reason of his 
extraordinary capacity to possess himself of all the 
common knowledge and common arts of his master. 
Here too, the reason of his presence with U8, where 
tin- habits of private intercourse are free, the rudi- 
ments of common learning more universal, ami the 
Bentiment of human liberty and equality, despite the 
exception in his own case, more intense and over- 



LECTURE. 35 

mastering than anywhere else. And here, too, may 
be the reason of his personal, rather than his national 
bondage, that thus he might be chained down hand 
and foot to the spot of his trials and training, and 
kept there until all things were ready for his delive- 
rance and departure. 

"Whatever the extraordinary interior characteristics 
of this institution, as developed, really and truly fore- 
shadow, they are such in their plainest aspect, un- 
questionably, as to make the institution eminently 
hopeful of great things to Africa, and thus to surround 
it, and those who cherish it, with strongest motives 
to forbearance ; with strongest admonitions against 
rash and passionate intermeddling ; with new and 
powerful reasons for taking it entirely from the field 
of political agitation, and of dropping it, instantly and 
for ever, as a ground of sectional contest or rebuke. 

Consider this system in any light that you may, — 
consider it as the crushed and distorted, but still the 
living and embryo principle, through which the liberty 
of the gospel, and the liberty of this free government, 
are yet to be conferred upon masses of men, now bar- 
barous and benighted; the mysterious and providen- 
tial means by which the sufferings of Africans upon 
this continent are to be converted into the uplifting of 
their own, and the superstition, and cannibalism, and 
tears of its sunken millions to be wiped away ; — con- 
sider it thus, or only in its lowest aspect, as a mere 
institution of domestic labour, sanctioned by some par- 
ticular States ;— be the light in which you regard it 
what it may, the one rational, authoritative, universal 
injunction of wisdom, and duty, and safety concerning 
it is, — let it alone. 



36 LECTURE. 

If it be in reality, as we may well hope it is, the 
-rcat BeminaJ principle of a yet to be recovered and 
redeemed continent of people, let it rest with the 
Power that planted to mature and perfect it, confident 
that it will be done with unerring justice, and that 
the door for man's agency in it, if ever needed, will be 
clearly and widely thrown open. But if it be no 
more than a naked system of civil rights, then, too, 
and especially, let it alone; leave it, with every ac- 
countability it may impose, every remedy it may re- 
quire, every accumulation of difficulty or of pressure 
it may react, to the wisdom, the interest, and the con- 
science of those upon whom the providence of God, 
and the constitution of country have cast it. 

If, in this whole matter, you look exclusively, or 
look principally, to the personal interest of the slave, 
that interest cries back to you with emphatic entreaty 
to spare it, — imploring you, in the name of mercy and 
for mercy's sake, to commit against it the wrong of no 
farther interference. Be assured, in all soberness and 
truth, that all interference with this institution, what- 
ever the form of it, is as pernicious to the private 
welfare of the slave, as it is perilous to the security of 
the republic. Nothing but aggravation and bitterness 
of heart and lot have come upon the poor slave from 
the misguided efforts that have been put forth to re- 
lieve him. They have (strangely, as you may think) 
broker down the footing he had reached, crushed the 
sympathies he had won, embarrassed and accursed the 
whole fortunes they were interposed to control. The 
generous and elevating influence of our free institu- 
tions was relaxing his bondage, bettering his condi- 
tion, lifting up his character, turning upon him the 



LECTURE. 37 

public anxieties and public counsels, as a suitable ob- 
ject of public provision, and changing, at all points, 
the aspects of his fate, when the same spirit of mad 
philanthropy which has since shaken this whole Union 
to its centre, came to scourge him with a demon visita- 
tion ; to wrench him from the arms of his only true and 
only capable benefactors, to throw him back again upon 
the earth, a thousand times more suspected, more sepa- 
rate and forlorn than ever ; riveting upon him every 
claim it would loosen, poisoning every blessing it 
would bestow, and filling his whole case with such 
elements of explosion, mischief, and evil, that the 
heart shudders, whilst it weeps, to look upon it. 

But impressive, exciting, and almost absorbing, as 
this is, there is another interest, reaching infinitely 
above, and expanding infinitely around it : the embo- 
died, inexpressible, and undying interest of our ivhole 
country noio and for ever. And this interest, too, in 
all its vastness, and with its ten thousand tongues, 
calls upon you to beware, and be wise; to put away 
this fratricidal subject from among you, whose chaf- 
ings, and passions, and dangers, and jealousies cannot 
be revived ; or, if revived, and pressed again into far- 
ther quarrel, can bring to us nothing but despair, dis- 
union, and national death. 

This is the one only subject, as we all know, out of 
the millions that enter into our public polity, that has 
the power to command, and does command perempto- 
rily, every passion and pulse of the national heart ; 
the only one upon which we are sectionally divided, 
and therefore, in these controlling and overmastering 
qualities, the solitary one, judging after man's judg- 
ment, upon which it is possible that our Union can be 



38 LECTUBE. 

wrecked. Whoever, then, deliberately undertakes to 
rouse it it]), and exasperate afresh the morbid but 
soothed condition of the national feeling upon this 
subject (and so, as a consequence, to impel it on in the 
course of unknown and irrestrainable excess), who- 
ever does this, deliberately undertakes, in effect, the 
dissemination of civil war, and the horrible and bloody 
extinction of his country. Whoever does this, — what- 
ever his pretence, whatever his locality, whether north 
of the Potomac or south of it, he is, to all intents and 
purposes, in his action and up to his ability, a dis- 
unionist, — a plotter of mischief. — an aider and abettor 
for the overthrow of his country. And such a coun- 
try ! — the praise and the glory of the whole earth — 
to be recklessly and madly put into peril by the folly 
or the wickedness of her own protected and happy 
children ! 

Never before has it fallen to the lot of any other 
people to be possessed of so rich an aggregate of poli- 
tical capabilities, so responsibly and so providentially 
wrought up, for immense and beneficent action upon 
the well-being of universal man. From the empire of 
Nebuchadnezzar to that of Napoleon, how great the 
distance, how stupendous the revolutions, how intense 
the fiery contests, which have blazed and crackled over 
continents and ages, changing their instruments and 
their theatre as they swept along, and leaving upon 
I lie whole sin face of the globe scarce a spot unstained 
by their desolating and bloody track; and yet, no 
national offspring has ever sprung from them all, so 
fitted as our OWH beloved find, to redeem for the world 
the agonies they have cosl it. Throughout this long. 
long period, with only here and there a brilliant and 



LECTURE. 39 

inspiring exception, the governments of every age and 
clime have been nothing but cruel and indefinite modi- 
fications of the principle of force — the free will of the 
people being, in them all, the one accursed, incarnate 
evil to be extinguished, and the unlimited power of the 
rulers, the one rightful, necessary, and even divine 
instrument by which to accomplish it. Hence, by a 
monstrous and horribly impious inversion of the whole 
purpose of civil authority, the machine is supreme, the 
living builders of it, subordinate, — the government, a 
pyramid, but man, thinking, acting, feeling, ethereal, 
and undying man, the wretched and miserable mum- 
my within it. Here, thank Heaven, we have long- 
been instructed in the great opposite truth, — that 
government was made for man, and not man for the 
government; and, framing and shaping all things to 
this, we have enthroned the ivorlcer over Ids work; we 
have committed all that we have, and all that we are, 
with free and confiding heart, to the very principle so 
rejected and despised of others, and are, not only now 
reaping, as the consequence, every blessing which 
human nature can enjoy, and human government 
secure, but are presenting to the world the unparal- 
leled exhibition of a country where the utmost freedom 
of the citizen, and the utmost authority of the State 
are the co-existing and upholding conditions of one 
another. 

And now that this unequalled country, with all its 
blessings of freedom, and happiness, and power is 
ours, — the peerless and priceless heritage of ourselves, 
and of our children, — who that has an American heart 
in his bosom, that does not feel it to be amongst the 
proudest of his privileges, and holiest of his public 



40 LECTURE. 

duties to rally around and to defend it, and especially, 
and above all. from that suicidal .spirit of section, 
which lias already harassed us, and which is the only 
enemy upon this wide earth that has the slightest 
power to endanger or to overthrow it? If there are 
any. ready and willing to conquer and put down the 
enemy that would conquer and put down it, let them 
come up, from every city and hamlet in the land, to 
the side and the support of Congress ; — let them stand 
by the solemn adjustment in this very behalf which 
that body has made, and carry it out faithfully and 
fully in all of its parts. Make this adjustment your 
own by ratification and actual fulfilment. Give your 
hearts to it boldly and freely, and let the world under- 
stand that, come what may, you are resolved to main- 
tain it; resolved to maintain, with unbroken faith 
to your political associates everywhere, the pledges 
and covenants of the Constitution, and thereby main- 
tain, in all its primitive integrity, the Union itself. 

Do this here. Do it everywhere else in your North- 
ern States. Give the whole energy of the popular 
heart to the fulfilling of this great measure of concilia- 
tion and of peace, and our glorious country is safe — 
for ever safe. Without a sorrow in her spirit, without 
a tremor upon her limb, without the beginning of 
decay within her, with the dew of youth and health 
fresh and undried upon her cheek, she will go on her 
pathway of immortality, earning out to its brightest 
consummation the illustrious career she has begun. 
The poor devotee of freedom in the dim and dusky 
atmosphere of other lands, will still leap from his 
pallet of straw ;it the mention of her name, and shout 
and joy that she is safe. She will still tower up, as 



LECTUEE. 41 

before, a " city set upon a hill," shedding forth her 
light for the hope and the healing of nations. Her 
master spirit will be strong as ever in bringing the 
whole world into communion with itself; rousing up 
its millions, and bearing all things onward by the 
resistless energy and might of its own profound im- 
pulsion. Her bold and free heart will still glow with 
the hope of renovating the governments and the peo- 
ple of the earth, and beat and burn under the inspiring 
belief, that whilst it was the destiny of Greece to give 
her civilization, and of Rome to give her letters, hers 
will be the loftier and holier one still — to give her 
liberty to the world ! 



ADDRESS 



AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCn IN 
SOUTHWARK, PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 1849, BY THE REV. ARCHIBALD 
ALEXANDER, D.D. 

Chkistian Friends — You are convened on a very interest- 
ing occasion. You are met here, not to transact any secular 
business, but to lay the foundation of a house to be dedicated 
to the worship of the living God — your Almighty Creator, 
kind Preserver, and Benefactor, and most gracious Redeemer. 
The eye of the Omniscient Jehovah looks with favour on such 
an enterprise, because it is intended to promote his own glory 
and the salvation of men, in which he delighteth. If public 
worship be a duty, which all Christians admit, then there must 
be a place in which the people may assemble ; and a house 
consecrated to the worship of God should be decent and com- 
modious, and we ought not to desire to serve God with that 
which costs us nothing. We may be parsimonious in what 
relates to personal accommodation and self-indulgence ; but in 
what regards the service of God, we should be liberal. David 
said, " Neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord my 
God of that which doth cost me nothing." And all the immense 
wealth which this devout king acquired in a long reign, and 
in many successful wars, he dedicated to the service of God, 
for the erection of the temple. And when the people as well 
as himself, had a heart to give willingly for this object, he 
considered it a matter of special thanksgiving ; although it 
was but returning to the Lord what properly belonged to him. 
"Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise thy 
glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that 



II ADDRESS. 

should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all 
things come of thee, and of thine own have we given tliee." 
After the return of Israel from their Babylonish captivity, 
they were severely reproved for their negligence in rebuilding 
the temple of the Lord. Some said, " The time is not come, 
the time that the Lord's house should be built." And what 
answer did the Lord return to this, by his prophet Haggai ? 
" Is it a time for you, ye, to dwell in ceiled houses, and this 
house lie waste ?" And for this neglect, the bounties of God's 
providence were, in a great measure, withholden from them. 
Their agricultural labour was unproductive, " They sowed 
much and brought in little." And so it will ever be. If we 
neglect our duty in regard to his worship, or arc niggardly in 
making suitable provision for it, He will manifest his dis- 
pleasure by withholding his favours, or by sending upon us 
his righteous judgments. The exhortation of God to the peo- 
ple, then, we may apply to ourselves, " Consider your ways." 
■• < <<> up to the mountains and bring wood, and build the house, 
and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the 
Lord."' 

I said that the founding a church, or a house for the worship 
of God, was an interesting transaction ; and I now will show 
why. 

In the first place, it is, as it were, bringing God to dwell 
among you and to bless you. "We all know, that Jehovah 
dwelleth not in temples made hands. And as Solomon said in 
his prayer at the dedication of the temple, " But will God, 
indeed, dwell on the earth. Behold the heaven and heaven 
of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that 
I have builded." God is not confined to anyplace; no, not 
even to the highest heavens; yet he does condescend to take 
up his abode in particular places. For, after Solomon had 
ended his prayer, the glory of the Lord filled the house, and 
resided there in the inmost, or .most HOLY PLACE | which 
glorious presence, or in-dwelling, the Jews called Schecjiixa. 
This was a miraculous manifestation; and we look for nothing 
"1" the kind now; but there is a presence, or in-dwelling, a 



ADDRESS. 45 

spiritual Schechina, which is still more glorious and more 
beneficial ; and this is in his Church, in all ages. " Wherever 
two or three are gathered together in my name," says Christ, 
" I am in the midst of them." Certainly, then, where a 
church of true believers meet for his worship, there is He, 
their Head. The most important society in the world is the 
Church, and it is a high privilege to have a branch of it esta- 
blished in our midst, to which we and our children can have 
free access. For wherever there is a Church of Christ, there 
Christ will be present ; and he never comes to any place with- 
out bringing a blessing with Him. " In all places where I 
record my name, I will come unto them, and I will bless them" 
This is a promise of a general nature, not confined to any one 
time or dispensation. Wherever, then, a church is organized, 
and a house of prayer erected, there the name of God is 
recorded, and his promise sure. He will come and bless the 
people who assemble there for his worship, and to hear his 
holy word. No greater blessing has God given to men than 
the glorious Gospel of his grace. Wherever it comes, it 
sheds light on all around. It holds forth Christ, who is the 
Sun of Righteousness, the light of the world. The beams of 
divine truth, when they shine into any place, disperse the 
mists of ignorance, error, and prejudice ; and if the natural 
light is sweet, and pleasant to our eyes, how much more the 
light of divine truth ? How happy are they who know the 
Lord, and are illumined with the rays of spiritual light ? 

The Gospel is, moreover, a healing medicine for the diseased 
souls of men. It is an effectual remedy for maladies incurable 
by any other means. It is u the balm of G-ilead" and Christ 
is the great Physician, who has procured the remedy, and 
knows how to apply it. Suppose your families were down 
with some fatal disease which baffled all the skill of physi- 
cians, and one should come among you who possessed a 
sovereign remedy, which no other knew or could administer, 
how would the dwelling of such a physician be surrounded ! 
and from morning to evening applicants would throng around 
him. Well, spiritual health is more important than bodily; 



46 ADDRESS. 

and men arc all deeply diseased with the mortal leprosy of sin, 
though many are insensible of their miserable condition. How 
desirable to have a dispensary in your midst, -where all may 
come and be gratuitously supplied with medicine, which will 
heal their -nuls ! Such a dispensary will be a gospel Church 
in the midst of you. 

But more, the gospel is the word of life. It is the voice of 
God for raising the dead. Men, by nature, are not merely 
sick, but dead — "dead in trespasses and sins;" but the word 
attended by the power of the Spirit, which always accompa- 
it, communicates spiritual life to 'the dead. It inspires 
men with new principles of action — not selfish, and sordid, 
and carnal; but holy, benevolent, and useful. They actually 
beconu', under the influence of the gospel, " new creatures ;" 
"old tilings are passed away, behold all things are become 
neiv." No other means has ever produced a thorough refor- 
mation of heart and life. The gospel is also the harbinger of 
peace. It is the "word of reconciliation." By it the breach 
between God and the sinner is made up; " Being justified by 
frith, we havepeace with Gfod, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
It brings peace to the troubled conscience, and harmonizes the 
discordant passions of the soul. And it produces peace among 
men, just so far as it is embraced and obeyed. It removes 
those malignant passions, which are the sources of strife of 
every kind. " Whence come wars and fightings, but from 
your lusts?" Eradicate or subdue these evil passions, and the 
peace of society is secured. What is the proper remedy for 
those evils which have so frequently disturbed the peace of 
society in this great city, the very name of which should put 
men in mind of the duty of loving one another'.'' The con- 
servative politician says, "We want a faithful, vigilant, and 
strong police." Very good ; but this can only restrain the 
evil — we want a remedy that will eradicate it — which will cor- 
recl tin' evils of the heart — which will inspire men with good- 
will t'> one another, and cause them to live in the fear of God. 
If you want good order, peace, the pleasures of friendship, 
and good Bociety, introduce the ;_:o~|>el ; and let its sacred 



ADDRESS. 47 

truths be impressed on the minds of the rising generation. 
Let children early receive lessons from the sacred Scriptures. 
Let them hear these truths from their parents and from their 
Sunday-school teachers. Our safety as a nation depends upon 
the right education of our children ; and I know of no good 
system of education, which is not based on the truths of the 
gospel. You have already the blessed institution of the Sab- 
bath-school among you ; gather into it all the youth who are 
running wild on the Sabbath, and, if needful, set up " ragged 
schools," where the very offscouring of our race may be col- 
lected and instructed. * 

My Christian friends, you are mostly strangers to me ; but 
once I was well acquainted with Southwark, and all its streets 
and lanes. I considered it as part of my charge; for many of 
my parishioners inhabited this district. The church which I 
served, had more members here than all others put together. 
Forty years ago, much prayer was offered up for Southwark. 
During the whole period of my ministry, we kept up a prayer- 
meeting, in this district, at the house of two pious widows. 
That prayer-meeting was attended by many, and there was 
more appearance of the presence of God in it, than in any of 
our other meetings. The pious of other denominations frequently 
met with us there, and united their prayers with ours. Excuse 
me, if I mention the names of some who delighted to attend 
in that retired spot. Joseph JEastbum, though residing far 
away, was often in our midst, with his warm heart, affectionate 
voice, and tearful eye. There he poured out his feeling heart 
in many a fervent prayer and earnest exhortation. The case 
of the neglected seamen had not then engaged his attention. 
And I must mention two of the elders of the Pine Street 
church, of which I was pastor, John McMullin and James 
Stuart. If they were ever absent, it was from sickness or 
some providential hindrance. Stuart, I understand, has re- 
cently been called home. He was, indeed, a man of fervent 
spirit — more earnest and affecting prayers than his, I never 
heard. And John McMullin, of Front Street, was certainly, 
in temper, in conversation, in his whole behaviour, toward God 



48 ADDRESS. 

and man, one of the most consistent, perfect Christians with 
whom I have ever been acquainted. Weekly, these men, with 
other-, offered up their earnest prayers in this district, and for 
its inhabitants, which, I trust, are now about to he answered 
more fully than before. 

We had connected with our church a company of poor 
widows, who were supported by the alms of the church. These 
pious women were mostly inhabitants of Southwark. I used 
to think, that those poor women, instead of being a burden, 
were a treasure to the church ; for they prayed day and night 
for her prosperity. Guided by the faithful ciders above-men- 
tioned. I sometimes visited them in their garrets or cellars ; 
and these visits were always edifying to me.. One afflicted 
Scotch widow, who lived in a poor garret, I particularly re- 
member. Her soul appeared to be alive to God. The prayers 
of the Lord's poor are powerful ; and no doubt some of them 
remain to be answered, in behalf of the inhabitants of this 
place. 

Finally, I would say, Arise and build. Let every man, 
woman, and child do something to help forward the house of the 
Lord. And to whomsoever the missionary applies for aid, for 
Christ's sake, let him not be sent empty away. It is for the 
Lord's house thai he solicits. And when such an enterprise is 
on foot, so necessary to supply the spiritual wants of a desti- 
tute district, let all Presbyterians in the city of Philadelphia 
feel it to be not only a duty, but a privilege, to lend their aid. 
Let them desire to have at least a nail in the house of God 
about to be erected. Let them rest assured, that, in the end, 
they will be no losers by contributing to such an object. 

Dear friends, when the missionary of Southwark applies to 

you for aid in erecting this church, send him not empty away. 

your ability, ami according as God has blessed 

you. givi — give liberally — give cheerfully, and the Lord will 

reward you with blessings a hundred-fold more valuable. 



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